


Last Guard Standing

by friendlytroll



Category: Half-Life
Genre: Character Study, Drabble, Gen, Injury, Short n sad, also gordon doesn't actually show up in this so I can't tag barney/gordon, but just understand at all times I am working from the assumption these two were dating, sort of between half life 1 and 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:34:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25198579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/friendlytroll/pseuds/friendlytroll
Summary: Barney has some trouble getting home after taking Alyx home from a field trip, and gets stuck thinking about how much he's still holding onto the past even while trying to make sure there'll be a future.----In which I have been thinking just a lot about Barney Calhoun, and the concept of him as a central figure in the resistance as an almost folkloric figure to Gordon's saint, and also very sad gay thoughts.
Relationships: Barney Calhoun & Alyx Vance
Comments: 2
Kudos: 67





	Last Guard Standing

Five years of this. And somehow Barney hadn’t gotten any god damn smarter about the shitty world they’d found themselves in. Woulda thought he had, really! Hell, that was the whole god damn reason Eli trusted him, right? Barney Calhoun, the fucking. Last Guard Standing, or whatever the hell spooky shit he’d been hearing his trainees gossiping about. Between that and the. ‘One Free Man’ thing he spent a lot of time trying not to think about, sometimes he could swear the Vortigaunts dramatic way of speaking was god damn. Catching. 

Probably wasn’t even true. He didn’t like to think no one else on the Security Force made it out. Just. He was just the only one anyone’d heard of. Just…. well. Hell. In the scramble to carve out a space outside the Combine, they’d needed _someone_ to train people with a gun, with a radio, with codes (still the black mesa numbers and protocols, just with the meanings shifted, adjusted, and he’d swear it was just what he’d known, it was easy, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about how often some of those radio codes were starting to sound like a prayer). And well. Shit. 

He’d been there. 

It wasn’t enough. But nothing was. And every time people looked at him with admiration or asked about this or that raid he’d lead, or line he’d held, or how glad they were he’d trained them (never enough, never enough people left, not enough ground won) he just wanted to tell them. How much better they deserved then a damn. Security guard. 

But he was what they had. Him. And hope. So he smiled and laughed things off, because he was still good at that. 

Alyx was easier to handle. 

Because to Alyx, he was just her Uncle Barney. The guy who’d bring her back whatever books he could find, who’s sit with her when her dad had to try to wire the world back together. Who was teaching her how to hit so you were aiming behind what you’d hit so your fist goes through, and how to climb, and how to ‘talk quiet’ with her hands because it was useful. 

( _Because when Gordon came back, she’d know how to understand him._ )

Who took her out on secret little walks on the edges of the cities, because she needed to get out sometimes, and learn how to sneak around, and it was definitely safe because the Combine didn’t seem to _give_ a damn about those empty little edges of places. And Barney knew how to find those. And Eli trusted Barney. 

He really treasured those walks. Alyx was a bright kid, and she loved having the chance to get outside. 

He wondered if he’d ever be able to think of these walks without remembering the sickening _click_ of the City Scanner drone sounding off. 

Then, he was running, with Alyx bundled tight to his chest. God bless her she didn’t make a peep, just curled up tight like he’d taught her, right behind where the bulk of his armor (scavenged and bolted and hidden and sometimes full Combine gear which he _hated_ more then anything but it worked) and god let it be enough. 

It hadn’t been enough for him. But he hadn’t even broken stride as the crack-burst of white hot pain hit his ribs. That was something to be proud of. Make a real good story. So long as he made it. 

The crack of gunfire behind him had blurred into white noise as he turned into the dead alleyway. But that was fine! That was perfect. Especially since he knew where he was, and eli and him had talked about this, and this would work it had to work what was the point of _anything_ if he couldn’t do this when it _counted_. 

_If he could have in black mesa, if he could have helped._

Under his armor, the device was heavy, and hot, and had to go on under his shirt so it touched skin. The battery liked to threaten to burn him. But Eli and Kleiner had made it, and god bless them for not asking any more questions then they’d needed to, and god damn it but wearing it all this stupid time was going to be worth it if this worked. 

He picked up speed, urging his burning legs as he gunned it to the wall, and held Alyx close. 

And then…

And then. What had happened?

Barney was sitting in the corner of one of the safe houses. Not far from the base.He could feel the brick behind him, and Alyz was in his arms and saying something to him, but. Waves of dizziness were overcoming him whenever he tried to think, or lift his head up. His side hurt. What was Alyx saying?

“Uncle Barney?”

He reached up, and did his best to pat her head softly, reassuring her he was alive. Probably. Well. He was moving, anyways. 

The wall he’d been running for had vanished. The next step had been into shallow water. the next into sand. The sky had become a rainbow smear of galaxies that ached to think about. A man holding a briefcase had turned to look at him under too many suns, and shouted a warning. 

Then machinery under his clothing had gone white hot, and the world had lurched. Except he wasn’t there yet. So he’d taken another step. 

It occurred to him that that shot to the ribs he’d taken mighta cut a cord, but only in the dim way any thoughts were happening right then. Didn’t matter. 

He struggled to sit up, and looked Alyx over. She’d thrown her arms around his neck, but at least on a glance she didn’t seem any worse then rattled. But even just that ached. Her little armored hoodie was wet but-

He pulled his hand up, and sighed in soft relief to see it came back up green. Probably just smeared on her during the run… that was fine. So long as he was the only person hurt that was. Starting to become the best case scenario, honestly. 

“Easy, pint-size. Easy. I’m ok. Just… kinda dizzy from the trip. That’s all. You know how Uncle Barney kinds kinda dizzy, sometimes.” he assured her, leaning back against the wall as he patted her back. Already he could hear her taking deep breaths, trying to calm down. Even though she was a kid. Even though she shoulda been able to just cry as much as he could. There should have been someone to take care of it. 

“...Sweetie. We’re real, real close to home, Right? Think you can use your radio to call em’?”

As she nodded, and wiped her face, and stood up with a heroic resolve that she shouldn’t ever have needed, Barney considered how much he hoped he’d get to see Dr. Breen face to face. Just once. 

While she got her radio out and intently tuned it, he got a grip on his bearings, dizziness still washing over him. It felt like he was trapped on the fastest train ride in the world, the ground under them rocketing with speed. Focusing on where he was would help 

He’d gotten them to. He was pretty sure it must have been a mining supply shed. It was tucked into the rocks, with sunlight filtering in through a disguised entryway ladder from the surface. Deep in enough to escape scans, with a supply cache and… he turned his head slightly, smiling tiredly as he saw the orange spraypaint on the wood boards behind his head. 

He’d always thought it was such a cheesy logo. He’d joked once it was like if Area 51 had _branding_ , and Gordon had laughed. 

He closed his eyes, and moved to clamp his hands over the pain in his ribs. It’d heal. He never had any problems that way. And if he could get back to the Vortigaunts, they could fix his head back up again. And his crew would call him the Immortal Man again, and joke about luck, and probably Eli would be more releived then disappointed. Maybe something about how he agreed to let them go, it was his fault too…

Mossman was going to say something snide about his intelligence when she could pretend she thought he couldn’t hear her. 

“Uncle Barney? I can’t get reception, but I think up there…” she held her hand up to point to the entry out through the rocks above. The ladder didn’t reach all the way to the ground, since the entry sorts opened up into the roof of the storage room- pretty much an air vent they’d stapled some hand holds into. 

That took him back. 

“Okay, sweetie. Hold on a sec…” Barney said quietly, bracing his hand against the floor because he was who was there, and there weren’t anybody else coming till she had that radio in the air, and that was that. 

Once, a long time before the combine, he remembered he’d dropped a plastic shopping bag, and something glass had broken inside. Something jarred. He wasn’t trying to remember too hard because remembering food that wasn’t rations wasn’t going to help him feel any better. But he did remember how it’d felt to pick the bag back up, and feel the glass shifting inside, scraping and settling. 

That was what it felt like to stand up, bracing his hand against the wall as he moved, inch by inch. The deep breath he took once he’d made it didn’t feel any better. 

“Okay, remember to keep an ear out, ok? If you need to get out of sight, just drop. I’ll catch you.” he promised, gently picking her up under the arms and lifting her up over his head, gritting his teeth together to stay quiet as she grabbed the first rung. 

If he sat again, he thought dimly as she climbed up, he was absolutely sure he wouldn;t be able to get up again at all. So he stayed, watching so he could catch her, smiling slightly as she braced herself at the top and started working on the radio again. 

He turned his head absently, back towards the graffiti. He;d always liked to call it the Lambada lab, because it was kinda funny when it bugged the scientists. And because it’d made Gordon grin, and teach him a new sign, that’d become their secret little joke. 

And then, now, everyone who trained under Barney knew the hand sign that let you clue someone in you were safe, even if you were under a Combine helmet, was your first two fingers pointed down at your other hands palm, swung gently back and forth. 

_Dance. Because it’d become Gordon signing he’d be at the Dance lab overnight_. 

His eyes stung as he looked back up at the light, wavering as the ground lurched under him, feet set as Alyx tapped out a message for help. 

Five years of this. 

And he wasn’t sure if he was happy or sad that the world seemed intent on making it very, very hard to stop thinking about it so much. 

  
  



End file.
